Clouds Discovered on Saturn's Moon Titan

In addition to the clouds above Titan's south pole, the Keck images, like previous data, reveal the bright continent-size feature that may be a large icy highland on Titan's surface, surrounded by linked dark regions that are possibly ethane seas or tar-covered lowlands.

"These are the most spectacular images of Titan's surface which we've seen to date," said Michael Brown, associate professor of planetary astronomy and lead author of the Caltech paper. "They are so detailed that we can almost begin to speculate about Titan's geology, if only we knew for certain what the bright and dark regions represented."

In 2004, Titan will be visited by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which will look for clouds on Titan during its multiyear mission around Saturn. "Changes in the spatial distribution of these clouds over the next Titan season will help pin down their detailed formation process," says Imke de Pater, professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley. The Cassini mission includes a probe named Huygens that will descend by parachute into Titan's atmosphere and land on the surface near the edge of the bright continent.